Are School Photos Overpriced?

It's picture day next week, which means I only have a few more days to decide if I'm going to cough up the $35-$50 for photos of my first-grader standing in front of a backdrop of books with a fake smile pasted on his face. Oh, how I wish he would look as cute and natural as this lad at right.

My daughter always looks like she's on the verge of tears in her shots, she hates picture day so much.

But for some reason I feel guity if I don't order the school photos, even though I don't really like them. I prefer natural, candids to posed shots of children. I guess I always order a package in the end because when I look them years from now, they will sort of chronical my kids' journey through school.

CafeMom JSVDP's friend IRL didn't want to pay the money for the package, so she took some shots of their children posed in much more natural ways. She got real creative, snapping some of the pics with the kids in front of cemetery headsones. Check out the photo shoot in Advice for Moms.